I turn 42 today. That’s the age I’ve been dreading for as long as I can remember.
When I allow myself to think about it, as I force myself to do now, the reality of it makes my hands shake, takes my breath away. Here I am, the same age my mother was when she died.
That was 28 years ago, when cancer took her from me. I don’t think I’ve ever worked up the nerve to write anything about her. Until today.
It was August, and I was at sleep away camp. My mother had sent me there despite her illness, because she wanted me to enjoy my summer and not spend it worrying about and caring for her. Never did I think those weeks would be her last.
Even when my dad, her ex-husband, suddenly showed up at camp and brought me straight to the hospital, it didn’t even cross my mind that she could die. But she did, that very night.
If I close my eyes, I can still picture her lying in the hospital bed, her eyes closed, her dark hair contrasting with the white of the bed sheets. And I can remember falling asleep in a cold waiting room chair, my older brother and stepfather nearby. And waking up to a sea of nurses telling us she was gone.
In many ways, over the years, I remained that teenager who lost her mom two weeks before the start of high school. Angry at the world, wishing her mom were there to give her advice about boys and friends, school and work. Stubborn, independent, pushing everyone away, because nobody could take her place.
Even in my 20s and 30s, I still felt like a child missing her parent, as I dealt with the joys and stresses of work, marriage, parenthood, divorce, single motherhood. Each life experience was like a huge punch in the gut, because I had to deal with them all without my mom. As I sat at a family gathering, or was out with friends, it would hit me all of a sudden. They had their moms. I didn’t.
Sometimes I felt like I was reliving parts of her life. That age, 42, always was a scary thing in the future, something I thought about but never talked about until recently. Back when I was 14 and my mom was 42, I thought she was young to die, but I still considered that age way, way off.
And here I am.
At 42, the memories have faded. Certain ones pop in my head out of the blue. The day she spilled the boiling pasta water on her arm and got second degree burns. Her doing her Jazzercize tapes in the living room. The time I was in her office and stapled my thumb. The time my stepdad ate an entire huge bowl of Caesar salad she had made for a family dinner, before the guests had arrived. Why I remember those things, who knows.
In recent months, my thoughts have shifted, from how much I miss my mom, to how I never want my kids to have to deal with such pain and loss. I feel like all my life, I’ve focused so much of my thoughts on the past, on what I was missing. I don’t want to live like that anymore. I want to focus on the future, on all that I have.
I still miss my mom, all the time, with a pain so deep to this very day. But I feel like my point of view has changed, from that of a child missing her mommy, to that of a mommy worried about her own child missing her mommy.
My oldest, my boy, is 14 years old. I look at him and think holy crap, he’s the same age I was when my mom died. That realization shakes me to the core. When I think what it would be like for him to lose me, I am just overcome with emotions. I can’t, I just can’t, let that happen.
I’ve been having myself a little pity party the past couple of weeks. I’ve cried over nothing, snapped at my poor wonderful husband. I went to see a therapist for the first time in months. She asked me why I was there. “I don’t want to hurt anymore when I think about her,” I said. “I can’t make that happen,” she said.
Am I rambling? Probably. My emotions are all over the place. But I do know one thing for sure. I’ve obsessed over this birthday for long enough. It’s here. This writing is my self-induced intervention-slash-pep talk. Snap out of it, woman. It’s here. So am I.
I know I’ve got to do everything I can to be there for my kids. So I’ll wear my seatbelt, get that mole on my back checked, eat healthy, look both ways when I cross the street. Cry behind closed doors every once in a while. And today, I’ll smile when they wish me Happy Birthday, and thank God that I have them, and that they have me.
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